WordPerfect 5.0???
39 messages in this thread
Does anyone know the status of WordPerfect 5.0 for the amiga? They were
supposed to be at the Oakland AmiExpo showing/talking about it…. is this
a real thing?
–jp–seattle–
John,
They mentioned to one of the Mags that they are looking into it. That is
also what they said at Disney land last year. Basically, theya re doing
informal projected sales studies to see if it is worth their while. I
suspect that until there are about 10,000,000 Amigas installed that they
will not come out with a new WP for Ami. wmc
John – WP called at the last minute and told us they would not have a
program finished to demonstrate at the show. They didn't want to release
any details until the project was completed. However, I was told that they
were committed to doing it, so hang in there. – Joe Lowery, Executive
Director, AmiEXPO
Thanks for the word. I'll continue to hope that they keep woking on it.
Sad to 'announce' that they would be there to talk about WB5.0 and then
have them pull out 🙁
–jp–seattle–
I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but when I spoke to Wordperfect a
couple of days ago they said that they had dropped any product development
for the Amiga. They attributed this to lack of sales in the Amiga market.
I told them that for Amiga word processors, Wordperfect was not the best,
yet it was probably the most expensive. Amiga owners are not about to pay
that kind of money for software unless they have too. I suggested that they
continue to develop an Amiga product, but that they also research the Amiga
market a little better before deciding on final configuration of the
software and its price. They said they would take my suggestion into
consideration. If you have an opinion that you want Wordperfect to hear,
call them. They have a 1-800 number (which I can't find right now) but you
can call the 1-800 directory for it. (1800 555-1212). You've got to tell
them what you want.
Boy there sure is a lot of 'disinformation' around these days! Others are
posting that the WP5.0 is basically 'done', but CBM pi**ed WP off in some
way and the release is being delayed, another is posting that development
is continuing, and you say that it is nixed altogether. Whew!
I agree with you completely that folks should speak out to WP Corp if they
want further development. Not that WP is the end-all of word processors,
but it *would* be nice to have a 5.0+ version of it.
–jp–seattle–
I talked to a WP PR rep. It sounds as if WP 5 is under development, but is
NOT ready to be released (not even in beta yet). The rep told me that they
were trying to work out some stuff with Commodore, but it sounded more
hardware-related than under-the-table-financing related.
Commodore has bankrolled some important Amiga projects in the past. If
WPCorp is asking for development support, I hope the powers that be realize
what an important program it is to have on the Amiga…
…Denny Atkin
Amiga WordPerfect phone numbers (according to newsletter received last
August):
800-321-3204 or 801-226-4147
via Whap! Al Benglen
74615,500
I'd be a little leary of WP anyway after the treatment they have already
given us. What happens when they come out with 6.0??? will we have to
grovel some more. and what about all their other support programs like Draw
Perfect etc. will we ever see them??? I will stick with ProWrite from New
Horizons. At least they are a committed Amiga developer
and come out with regular upgrades at a reasonable price.
/ / //ANDRE
Well, to each their own 🙂
Personally I'd like WP to keep upgrading on the Amiga platform; I'd like
Borland to port their stuff too. I'd even like (ahem) MicroSoft Works to
be ported (ducking fast).
I also want ProWrite and all the other amiga-specific developers to do
well, cause I like their software better (ie. good amiga software). But I
do think that if WP (and other big-name PC software) were available for our
machine, that it would enhance sales considerably. And that would mean a
bigger pie for all developers to share. So, bring on WP 5.0/6.0/7.0/etc…
as far as I'm concerned 🙂
–jp–seattle–
Unfortunately, we need the support of the big software companies if the
Amiga is to be taken seriously as a machine that can do business. Ever try
to take your ProWrite files into work and read it into WordPerfect? Sure,
you can save it as ASCII, but if you have formatting codes, it is a royal
pain to take work home and back.
Besides, for document formatting, WP is the best around. I have yet to see
_any_ Amiga program that can hold a candle to WP 5.1.
THen you've never used TeX. :^)
It wipes WP 5.x off the face of the earth. Handily.
It also requires about 100x the mental effort.
Ben
Ben,
Is it TeX or WP 5.x that requires "100x the mental effort"?
<<< Michael Shea >>>>
<<< 76665,3360 >>>>
It's TeX. WP tries to be somewhat WYSIWYG, TeX makes no bones about being a
"control language".
As such, there are relationships to learn, in many ways it's similar to
learning a programming language.
That makes it much harder.
But it is a fabulous tool – much better than WP, if you can handle the
effort. I virtually ignored TeX for literally _years_ because I'd seen a
"source" file and *knew* it was going to be a serious learning
experience… I just didn't feel I had the time.
If you get a chance, take a look at the Imagemaster manuals. That's TeX
output.
I made a very bad mistake, not going for TeX right up front. I wasted an
enormous amount of time waiting for ProPage and PageStream to waddle thru
WYSISYG data, and the end result wasn't what I wanted, *ever*. WP came the
closest for handling TOC and index and so on, but it's an awful bear to use
(indexing for instance is enough to drive you to drink, if you're serious,
IE several hundred to a thousand entries).
It took me about two weeks to "get into" TeX and LaTeX, and I see no
current reason to turn away from it for serious (long) documents like
manuals and so on.
I still use PageStream for one and two page docs; both PageStream and TeX
are very useful for generating Faxes. I'm getting the hang of some
auto-generation in TeX for cover sheets and so on, unattended. I really
like it.
Ben
OK, where does one find TeX for the AMIGA? is there a PD version?
Inquiring minds want to know!
..Bill 😉
One finds TeX for the Amiga at/from Radical Eye Software, which you can
reach at 1-415-32-AMIGA.
One finds a demo on their BBS at (415) 32-RADIO.
One will likely get not too bloody far with the demo, unless one owns the
appropriate textbooks. :^)
If you're seriously considering this package, I think you have to get
everything RadEye offers, plus "The TeX Book" by Donald E. Knuth of
Modula fame, plus the LaTeX user's guide and reference manual by
Leslie Lamport. Radial Eye S/w stocks both books, I believe…. they
provided them to me on request with my initial order.
You're looking at a cost inthe region of about $450 for the whole
shooting match – and well worth it if you're up to the challenge.
I actually have Knuth's book on TeX… we all have our strange interests.
I use Nroff regularly at wok, though mostly with macro packages, so I do
have a bit of an iea of what I am getting myself into ( a small small bit!)
Thanx for the info, I will definately give it a try!
..Bill 😉
Bill –
In addition to AmigaTeX from Radical Eye, I know of two freely
redistributable versions CommonTeX and PASTeX. I'm just starting to learn
TeX and LaTeX, and am using a version on Sun SPARCStations, so haven't
tried any of the Amiga versions. From what I've heard, though, AmigaTeX is
well worth the cost.
Jeff Schweiger
Do you know of any BBS's or other sources for the PD versions? Or do I need
to get FTP access to the net?
Bill,
I don't know of any BBS's off hand with the software. I think FTP access
is necessary. Sorry.
I kind of assumed that I'd have to get it from the net. Thanx for the info!
Are you by any chance familiar with an (IBM mainframe) standard known as
Generalized Markup Language or GML? One implementation of this is in a
product for IBM mainframes known as Script.
I'm curious how close TeX is to Script, which I'm familiar with. In
Script, for example, you'd code the following to create a numbered list of
items:
:ol.
:li. This is an item.
:li. This is another item.
:eol.
You'd do the same thing with different commands to do bulleted lists, and
the formatting program handles all the indentation, word-wrapping, etc. Far
from WYSIWYG!
Does the above look at all similiar to TeX? Seeing what appears to be
thoroughness on Thomas Rockiki's part, he'd probably even mention GML in
the documentation if it were a relevant standard.
The syntax for TeX and the syntax for GML are completely different,
although there may be some logical similarities.
It's not similar in cmds or anything… but the exact capabilities you show
are in there. You would say:
\begin{itemize} \item thing \item thing two \item thing III \end{itemize}
Or, if you wanted enumerated lists, you use
\begin{enumerate}
And for things like a glossary or dictionary where the item is to be
bolded, and a description attached,
\begin{description}
All with the appropriate ends.
The TeX language was created by Knuth, the fellow that did modula, so
there's no question of it's coming from IBM.
Ben, re your comment on indexing in WP, use the concordance feature. Make
a list of all the words you want in your index, and WP will generate the
index from that.
No thanks… I'm off to TeX.
I find this all very interesting. I am considering trying to do some
part time technical writing. Currently I just use Transcript and have been
realizing I will need something much better. I remember hearing alot about
TeX from the SLAC people who wrote VLT. I also understand it does a good
job expressing mathematical formula.
Actually, if you're into math, there is NO other choice. Lucky for me,
I don't have to do that much, but if I did, TeX would let me say it
in print, even if I didn't understand it. :^)
I kinda thougt that TeX was the only way to do mathematical
notation on Ami. I just can't afford to shell out $450.00 buck right
now. The only other way I can see doing it is by graphics inserted
into Prowrite or another graphic word processor. I would have to make
me some IFF brushes in Dpaint for the various symbols.
Best you don't look at TeX output, then. It's likely to hurt your wallet.
:^)
Many of the symbols exist in the PostScript symbol font. You could
probably find a math symbol set font, or set of fonts then use a font
editor to create the ones you needed in the appropriate sizes and use
ProPage/Saxon/Pagestream for final output. wmc
I think that would work for only the most simple of equations. Imagine a
function that is a rational function all under a radical. Depending on how
many vinculums the rational function has, and how long the rational
function is, the radical sign must adjust in both hieght and width. I don't
think any "font" would do the trick, unless you can arbitrally increase the
size of indivual elements.
WP 5.0/5.1 on PCs and VAXs has equation generator facilities. It is a
little different since it is not real WSIWYG.
Actually, get a Sun workstation, Interleaf TPS and have the equivalent of a
windowed, mouse driven TeX :^}
Wayne,
Sure, I have a few hundred grand laying around 8^)….
(((( Waking from a daydream !!!!))))….
<<< Michael Shea >>>>
<<< 76665,3360 >>>>
Naw – Sun recently dropped prices. For about 7K you can get a reasonable
workstation. And Interleaf is only about another 5k – maybe Santa will
bring it for Christmas!
wmc
As an overloaded aerospace engineer, the _last_ thing I need for myreports
is more effort! 🙂
Seriously, though, WP 5.1 has helped us produce fantastic looking reports
without having to have stuff typeset in our publications department. Since
our secretaries do such a lousy job in typing, we engineers do all our own
reports, memos, presentations, etc. Without WP it was a pain. My only
complaint is that we're running on a microVa AX system, which is slower
than snot because it's so overloaded!
No way to get a PC or something on the desk? You'd think they'd know the
$$$ they'd save if they could increase productivity.
Believe me, we've tried. When somebody invests a lot of money on a
mainframe system, _nothing_ will change their minds that it was a
mistake. Besides, we're a government contractor. We confuse
inefficiency with profit!
Unfortunately, you're not confused. :^(
Ben